whilst I can show the system of Christianity to have been and to be of that threefold description, from its origin to this day. There was never before on the earth, nor with it, a system of religion so dark, so siuful, and so contentious, On the other hand, the two continents of America are ela. quent proofs of the goodness of the system promulgated by Paine. And better they will be, when they follow his theological as well as his political system.

And now, what think you of the system of Paine Mr. Harford? I have travelled far beyond him in matters of religion. I scout his Deism; though I admire him for the advance which he made. I have undermined the Christian Religion by its own history, and I show, by dates, that it has been antedated a full century. I undermine the Old Testament, by asking you to shew me a single proof, a single piece of evidence, that a people called Jews or Israelites. inhabited Syria or Asia Minor before the Babylonian Colonization, and that any part of their sacred books was in existence before that time. But my third and most powerful retreat, that which shews all religion to be vice, is, the proof, visible to all who will open their eyes, and who dare to look at as I dare, that intelligence or the power to design is artificial, no where natural, and no where existing beyond that third portion of fixed matter, the animal world: an artificial property manufactured by a system of nerves and totally dependant upon that system. Now, where will you find au animal large enough to make or to move a planet? And from what can intelligence arise but from a planet already formed? That which theologians call a first prin-. ciple, is, in reality, the last principle in the scale of creation, They reverse every thing. They are they who ideally turn the world upside down

Your second paragraph commences with calling me impious. If impious expresses nothing more than hostility towards that vice religion, if it expresses nothing more than a war with the gods, I glory in the title and hold it to be the perfection of that which is right honourable, noble, excel-, lent, or whatever title can be found for that which is good and great. Six years have elapsed since you wrote your pamphlet. I have seen quotations from it; but never saw the original until the past summer. I now, for the first time, find, that you have been an active member of the vice Society, and now I can proudly tell you, that though I have been a prisoner for these last six years, though, at the instigation of your society, I bave been excessively robbed by the govern

ment, I have not only triumphed over, I have not only beaten your society to the ground; but I bave silenced all the artillery of that mean and base administration of government, that could espouse and identify itself with such a society. I have brought you all, government, and vice society, into such a state of contemptible weakness, as to be a mere set of play things for me. And I have done this solely upon the virtue of my impiety! I could have done a mere nothing as a politician, without an assault upon reli gion. I saw this, at an early period of my career, and I have undeviatingly acted upon it, amidst the clamour and frowns of pretended or short-sighted friends, and the abuse, the virulent abuse, of you and other enemies. I feel my triumph to be complete, and I am justified in shewing it. Basely as I have been treated in this Gaol, by some of your brother villains of the Vice Society and its tools, my imprisonment has been a pleasure to me, a real gratification, and though, at the time of writing this, I have not the least prospect of liberation, I shall look forward to the idea of another six years of imprisonment with the same peace of mind, with which I look back upon the past. I have now. completed a moral power that is far more powerful than allthe physical power in the hands of the government of this country, and in or out of prison, I shall go on to war my moral power, against that physical power, until I, or they who shall succeed me, shall make all moral alike, and see nothing but moral power the boast of the country.

In your third paragraph, you say:" Paine's works never did any harm to a candid and well instructed mind, but they bave often proved incalculably pernicious to per sons whose education or abilities have not qualified them to disentangle the sophistries, or to expose the arts of impiety." If an evil exists here as you say, all you have to do is to educate all alike. I am very willing to put the works of Paine to this trial. I can suppose, that a mind skilled in all the money making intrigues of Church and State is brassed or steeled against the admonitions of Paine; but where no education existed, the fault would be, that they could not understand his instructions so as to compare system with system. The majority of mankind all over the face of the earth are as ignorant as the cattle of the field,n and what is worse, they are corrupted both in body and mind by bad habits and bad social institutions. The object of Thomas Paine was to free this majority of mankind from this thraldrom, and to render them more equal with the mi

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nority, by equalizing their knowledge. This is my purpose in republishing and imitating his writings: I disavow all others. Tins is now proceeding in mechanics' institutions, in schools and discussion societies of every kind, and though they are not directly associated with the name of Paine, they have grown out of his assaults upon monarchy and the christian religion: aud they will proceed to the overthrow both of monarchy and the christian religion. I am for trusting every system to the best possible education that can be contrived for mankind, so as free discussion, not monarchial or priestly dictation, be its basis.

The conclusion of your preface tells us, that your authorities in sketching a life of Paine are Cheetham and Cobbett, the former in chief. Now, it is a sufficient answer to all your and their slander, to say, that no sooner did Cheetham's book appear in America, than Mrs. Bonneville brought an action against him for lies and slander, and he was convicted by a Jury, a Jury too not over favourable to Mr. Paine ; for, in other cases, he could not find justice from an Ame rican Jury, such was the prejudice of ignorance and bigotry against his theological writings. And as to Mr Cobett, though he had never the honesty and manliness to state the why and the wherefore that he wrote such an infamous sketch, such a lying sketch of the character of Thomas Paine, we all know, that he has done something towards an expression of sorrow for it, and has since written himself down a wilful liar, and a man unworthy of being considered an authority for the most simple circumstance. You are welcome even to Cobbett as an authority for any thing which you can find to say against Thomas Paine. They who read both Paine and Cobbett cannot be deceived on that ground. Both Cheetham and Cobbett evidently wrote with bad feeling and without honesty or good intention, in their memoirs of Thomas Paine. As ignorant people make gods and devils, Cheetham and Cobbett took Paine for the devil and sketched, as a pure invention, bis character accordingly. Mr. Cobbett now knows, that it can be proved by living testimony the most respectable, that Mr. Paine was uniformly a good and benevolent man, and that his actions every where corresponded with his writings. All the stories about his wretched death bed, you have seen falsified by living witnesses. The very persons to whom you, under the authority of Cheetham, refer, in America, to blacken his character, are ever ready to bear testimony to Mr. Paines's worth and to Cheetham's baseness. Even Carver, who ad

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mits, that he so far forgot himself, as to write that scurri lous letter to Paine, even Carver is living, as the testimony of the real worth of the man whom he slandered; and if Cobbett has redeemed his slander by exhumating the bones of one whom he once vilified, Carver has done a similar act in petitioning the trustees of Mr. Paine, that his body, when dead, may be laid in that grave from whence the bones of so great a man have been taken. Not that I admire Carver for this. It is a piece of that vanity which first led him to make Mr. Paine his guest, then to seek to extort an unjust demand of money from him, and, in failing to do this, to abuse him in a printed letter. As Carver was never worthy of the company of Mr. Paine in life, so he is not worthy to be laid in the same grave. The only fault which I can trace in Mr. Paine was, the countenance of, and an association with, such men as Carver. It was here he erred; and this opened the way for all that abuse which has been poured upon him, which a more select company would have warded off in defiance.

William Carver has sent me a very pompous invitation to come to New York and to partake with him of the best of that best of markets. I shall be very wary how I trespass on the thresholds of such men as William Carver. Mr. Paine was enticed, I could almost say seduced, by a similar invitation, and after being told, that to have him for a guest was solicited as a honour, he found himself shabbily treated; and to crown the whole, at separation, was charged the price of the best boarding houses. This was the real cause of the temporary breach between Thomas Paine and William Carver. I am sorry to have to say a word to the disparagement of William Carver, from whom I have received nothing but kindness and the most flattering eulogy, I would not have said it on any other ground, than that I think, to wipe off the smallest accusation from the character of Thomas Paine, is of sufficient importance to justify the sacrifice of the esteem of a thousand William Carvers.

Where you enter into general charges, that Mr. Paine was dishonest and cruel, I can only meet you with a general denial. In the memoirs written by Rickman and Sherwin, you may find anecdotes to prove his general humanity, and the fact that no man ever suffered a loss by him, that he died in no man's debt and with a small property that had been most temperately used, is answer sufficient to all general and false charges of dishonesty. But where you deal in particulars, such as his resignation of the office of Secretary to

the Committee of Congress for Foreign Affairs, and his arrest in England for a Debt, you can be met with parti colars, which bespeak the unsullied honour of him whom you would stain.

In the course of his duties, as Secretary to this Committee, he was attentive and honest enough to detect and expose a breach of trust in one Silas Deane, then on an embassy to some part of Europe. Instead of waiting to have the matter duly laid before Congress, Mr. Paine's zeal, honesty and indignation led him to expose Deane through the news papers. This was called a breach of official etiquette, by the Congress; but it could not be construed into a breach of trust. The Congress censured him for this breach of offi cial etiquette, and, refusing to bear him in answer, Mr. Paine resigned his office. There was no dismissal and he might have held on if he had liked. Subsequently, every thing was proved against Silas Deane, that Air. Paine had charged, and the abuse of his trust was so glaring, that he was obliged to expatriate himself. Every thing connected with this point redounds to the honour of Mr. Paine.

His arrest for debt in London is as easily and as honour.ably to be explained. He banked with an American House in London, under the name of Whiteside and Co. This house failed, and the assignees, perhaps, not knowing his resources, very unceremoniously arrested him. Two other American Merchants, who did know his resources, came forward instantly to his relief. And what is there in this, more than the best of men are liable to? You state his ar rears with the American House to be £700. I do not know that you are correct; but the sum is nothing and was soon covered. You wonder how he became so much in debt. I wonder not, even if it were double that sum. At that moment, the people of the United States of America bad brought on themselves a complete catastrophe, by dealing in that paper money in which it delights and profits you to deal. Remittances were with difficulty obtained and all was stagnation. Mr. Paine, on coming to England, first settled an annuity où his mother. This was about his first act in England, after the peace with America, that he could visit it safely; and this says a word or two, against a disposition to cruelty, inhumanity and dishonesty. Bad men do not trouble themselves much about mothers, even if they be aged, widowed, and poor. His income was never great, never exceeding four or five hundred pound a year,